Christmas in tha house!

David went out to the wadi, and surprised us all by coming back with this handsome evergreen tree.






I didn't even know they grew in the desert! And where did he find a cross-bow axe I wonder?

Emmett and I set out to decorate it at once.




The tree is sitting in what we like to call "the empty room." This is probably as good a time as any to show you some pictures of the house, as promised lo these many weeks ago.

The "empty room" is the only room in the house that wasn't fully furnished when we arrived. It is a traditional Islamic sitting room where men would receive guests apart from the family parts of the house. I have big plans for this room. Up to now it has been useful for car racing, trains, balloon tosses, and Christmas trees.

(we have been waiting for our fixer guy to come to hang pictures. Supposedly this will happen tomorrow! As you can see, the finest art in our collection is headed for these walls).

On either side of this front room are two wings- one for eating/ lounging, and the other for bedrooms.

These here are two of my favorite rooms. The wife of the last nyt correspondent is a graphic designer, and you can see she had a real flair in decorating.







Kitchen. Pretty average. At night a few lizards come and cling to the windows.




This hall connects the two wings of the house. The rug we inherited but I'd like to change it.




This is the playroom/ guest room. That's giacomo with Emmett and t building a train track.


Here's where y'all will sleep when you come visit.



Here's our messy room complete with one handsome nyt bureau chief.



I guess I don't have a photo of the boys' room. It's pretty crowded now cause it has 2 big boy beds and a crib. Hoping we'll lose that before too long.

Now here's Santa:




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Thanksgiving catch-up

Well, it's already december and I've been a little delinquent about updating november's events. For the last few days ive been laid very low by what I insist is dengue fever, but what medical evidence suggests was just a flu.

Here we are just before leaving to have thanksgiving dinner at our friend giacomo's house. Here we really have to give credit to Thomas for being savvy enough to befriend someone whose parents work for the embassy. This means they have access to the us commissary and all it's goodies. We had turkey AND ham and stuffing and pumpkin pie! Also, they are very nice people.










We all looked very sharp as you can see. Thomas was so polite: when asked what he wanted to wear he said, "whatever looks handsomest.". And, all by himself, after the food was served, he looked at his hostess and said, "what a delicious thanksgiving dinner." I was so proud.

Emmett wore his plaid party pants that continue to be crowd-pleasers.

Here we are on a recent trip to the Wadi with Juan and Felipe's family. You wouldn't believe the off-roading dave had to do to get us to this spot! The Rodriguez's were so scared.










Despite how we look in this picture, we all had a nice time.









Next up, Christmas is coming to Cairo!


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emmett with bites

Eid on the gulf of Aqaba

Last week was another "eid" or feast here. Everyone had the week off school. The holiday celebrates, among other things, god's decision to spare Ishmael and accept a sheep sacrifice from Abraham instead. Now, I remember this story in the bible, where God tells Abraham he has to sacrifice his son and then relents at the last minute after ishmael (Isaac to christians) is spread out on the slab. Granted, I didn't have the most church-y of upbringings, and new englanders shy away from emotional intensity generally, but I don't remember anybody celebrating this particular story. It mostly seemed to make everyone uncomfortable and was skipped over pretty quickly. So I was surprised to learn that the islamic world embraces this passage with such intensity. It's one of the biggest holidays of the year- sort of like Christmas. To do it right you really have to slaughter your own sheep. The Egyptian government imports thousands of extra sheep for the occasion. Everyone has to share some of their meat with the poor. On the day of the feast evidently the streets of Cairo run red with sheep innards and gore. Someone told me that the whole thing about feeding the poor has gotten out of hand: there is too much lamb and the poor can't even eat it all and so some just goes bad. I don't know if that's true. In this person's opinion it would be better if some people gave sheep to the poor, and some other people gave money or their time. But the Koran says to slaughter the sheep, and all that is taken very literally hereabouts.

On the other hand, this adherence to text means that absolutely everyone shares with the poor in tangible way. That certainly has not been my experience of holidays in the US even though there is a lot of talk and prayer for the poor on Christmas.

Anyhoo, I thought the boys were a little young for all this, so we joined some friends who were going diving in the Sinai. I really cant describe how different this place was, so i wont try. This is the hotel we stayed in:




It was right on the beach.


One day we rode horses.














We all enjoyed relaxing Bedouin-style.







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The only drawback was that there were some Mosquitos. They especially liked Emmett. We were able to take evasive measures, but not before he looked like this:








Poor guy!

We finally got rid of them by sacrificing a sheep . . . Just kidding!

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